Celestial gardens

BAGUIA

Much has changed by the winding road to the gated Celestial Gardens — the graveyard that straddles barangays Banawa and Tisa in Cebu City’s southwestern hills.

Years ago, the pass was lined to one side by mango, tamarind and other trees in a variegated orchard and to the other by lemon grass and other grasses of a meadow that offered a view of the plains.

Whether the eldest female cousin on my mother’s side (may she rest in peace), took me by this road to reach the gardens, I am not certain. But I have older memories of the destination. There was a whitewashed bust of the suffering Christ. There was a gumamela shrub that bloomed with peach blossoms.

I went through the road again last week. It has been awhile since I did but the visit was timely. Friends from the Verbum Dei family and I held a small reunion in the congregation’s local headquarters next to the garden gate.

Nowadays, there is little to see on the way up. Buildings and houses have risen beside the road. The extent of the construction spree may be measured by standing on the bend near the Jesuit retreat house and looking to the northeast past what may be the last clearing in the area.

It was Lent, so after lunch, catch-up conversations and Mass, I visited the gardens — a sprawl of valleys and hills that feature life-size concrete tableaus of the Savior’s procession to Golgotha.

Some mowing had been done on the Via Dolorosa. The brush on the main path was blade-scarred. Days of sun, signs of the looming summer had wilted the vines that climbed the trees.

The kalachuchis were silhouettes in the dying light. They have stood here, witnesses to piety for years. Friday nights in Lenten seasons past, communities and lone pilgrims trudged the way, helped along by the flickering flames of torches or the dim beams of flashlights.

I walked by the first tableau. It is not part of the Way of the Cross, but it depicts the first mystery of the Holy Rosary — the agony of the Christ in the garden of Gethsemane.

Here were the Messiah and an angel holding the cup of suffering. A few paces away were his closest collaborators: the sleeping Peter, James and John.
A neighborhood had some time ago sprung up around the gardens, and one passes by stores in the walk to Gethsemane.

It had also become a park for youngsters. A group of them stood nearby, chatting. Karaoke singing echoed from the nearby houses.

So did the sound of drums being beaten by someone in a valley not far away.

Others in the gardens sang to the strumming of guitars.

At one station, a boy and a girl sat together, texting. The sound of my footsteps on some dry leaves alerted them to my presence.

Someone else had visited the stations earlier in the day. There were fresh cut frangipanis in each, though flowers were not scarce as many stops were overgrown with red and orange lantanas. Whoever came also left a thin white candle at every station.

One learns acceptance in Gethsemane. “Take this cup of suffering from me, Father,” Jesus had prayed, “but not my will, but yours be done.”
He tried to awaken the disciples thrice as his arrest drew near. They remained asleep until the last moment.

There is only so much that one can do.

Custodians can only try to teach neighbors and youths the value of silence and solemnity in sacred spaces.

In the end, it will be the quiet that exposes the superfluity of noise; the age and history of mountains and trees that draw the young to contemplation.

There is a time for everything, and everything has its time: a time for song, a time for meditation; a time to talk, a time to listen; a time to commune with one another, a time to be alone; a time to live on holy ground, a time to understand the cost of one’s life in a garden; a time to be growing up and carefree, a time to age and preach fruitfulness and sacrifice through flowers, enlightenment and testimony through candles.